The present invention relates to arrangements which monitor the condition of a battery, especially for example those which ascertain the remaining capacity of the battery in an electrically powered vehicle. More specifically, the invention concerns monitoring arrangements of this type which in particular comprise a measuring means connectable to the battery terminals and means for causing the measuring means to persistently hold a measured value.
Such arrangements are already known, in which a voltage-measuring device connectable across the battery terminals is controlled by a control unit. The control unit enables the voltage-measuring device to respond to an input voltage when the control unit itself senses the flow of a typical load current for the battery, whereupon the voltage-measuring device responds to or registers the input voltage applied to it, this then constituting the reading. For what they are intended to do, such monitoring arrangements operate satisfactorily. However, with them, a measuring operation is performed only when a typical battery load current value is sensed, which is not always encountered, i.e., so that it is not at any given time possible to initiate such a measuring or monitoring operation. Also, to a certain extent such monitoring arrangements can be considered to exhibit a disadvantage in that the loading of the battery with a typical load current for monitoring purposes is left undefined with respect to its duration in time, i.e., for the purposes of the measuring operation to be performed.